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I am considering purchasing a new computer (laptop) for my LOR purposes and to be a dedicated show computer. I have accumulated many LOR related items over the years that I have been doing Light shows and would like to upgrade because at this point I may be maxing out my existing show computer which is perhaps 13 or 14 years old. During last seasons display of which I ran approx 275 channels and 1 - 12 string CCR tree I noticed some hick-ups as it just appeared that the computer couldn't quite keep up. I did run this show with 3 networks, 1 for the 275 and 1 each for 6 of the 12 CCR strings as recommended.

My question is this for those that know more about laptop computers than I. What would be a good recommendation for a dedicated Computer to be used only for LOR purposes? Are the now things out there that I need to be aware of that just will not work well with the LOR programs? Any ideas and or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Mike Schmidt

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I went through the something. I bought a desk top. Cheaper than a laptop and easier to upgrade hardware if needed in the future. I still use my old laptop to create items, then put them on a thumb drive to copy to my show computer.

That's just my opinion.

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I personally like the laptop as my show computer. My display has several different sections that cover a large area and I find troubleshooting much easier when I can carry my laptop outside and quarantine individual controllers when I have issues.

I went and purchased a three year old Windows 7 with an I5 processor at a local pawn shop for about $150. It has a 17" screen for easy viewing on aging eyes, a 500GB HD and 5 USB ports. I wasn't looking to spend a lot of money and it is dedicated to my shows.

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I always ask people why a laptop for a dedicated show computer (this comes up regularly on the forum). For the same dollars, you get far more RAM / CPU / hard drive with a desktop. Upgrades or repairs are FAR easier with a desktop. For a dedicated show computer, portability is not a requirement. My answer to Mr. P is that I take the laptop out in the yard and remote into the show computer, or just plug the portion of the show into the laptop (by way of ethernet or a RS-485 adapter as appropriate).

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I used an existing computer my first year. Then fabricated a computer out of leftover parts, for the next two years. Last year, I used a refurbished computer that I purchased from walmart. I only paid $269 for it and considering it came with a 750gb HD, dual Xeon CPU's, dual monitor GPU card, and 12gb of ram...I couldn't lose. It ran beautifully. This year, I upgraded the ram to the max 72gb and added a USB3.0 card to it. Its screaming fast.

Seriously though, to run a show, it doesn't require that much power at all. Most normal desktops will run just fine although with today's use of higher comm speeds with TCPIP for intelligent pixels along with more RS485 via USB...I would consider a faster machine with plenty of ram.

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Ram is limited by the OS so make sure you are not wasting money by putting in 24GB when the OS maxes at 16GB. As an example: Windows 7 Home Premium maxes out at 16GB so putting 32 in it would be useless.

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Thanks for the info guys, To k6ccc.. Its difficult to take my desktop out to the different sites where I set my displays up. The portability is a must as is the ability to do troubleshoots as Mr P has suggested. Not being a Computer guy, I was hoping for Brands people have had good experience with ( I have used Toshiba ) and particular models perhaps. Since I have not updated LOR for 2 years I was also wondering if I needed more of this and less of that or a better this or that. I am aware that I would need the 4 to 5 USB ports, but the processor speeds, GB needed and or Ram needed is what I am not sure about. I was thinking perhaps I have someone build one up for me since it will be a dedicated computer and then I am not purchasing all of the other stuff that comes on over the counter computers. Because I often have this set up in different towns, I need reliability, and because it seems that I have maxed out what I now have, because of the lagging I need more oomph. So what ever it takes to get a computer to handle what I have in todays world is what I would like.

For me I use my desktop as I do have the extra screens and it makes my programming much easier, but I am seeking the laptop because I need the portability.

Thanks again, Mike

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I personally like the laptop as my show computer. My display has several different sections that cover a large area and I find troubleshooting much easier when I can carry my laptop outside and quarantine individual controllers when I have issues.

I went and purchased a three year old Windows 7 with an I5 processor at a local pawn shop for about $150. It has a 17" screen for easy viewing on aging eyes, a 500GB HD and 5 USB ports. I wasn't looking to spend a lot of money and it is dedicated to my shows.

Why don't you just use Team Viewer. You can access a desktop or laptop from your phone or tablet. I found it to be very useful last year, and it's free.

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Thanks for the info guys, To k6ccc.. Its difficult to take my desktop out to the different sites where I set my displays up. The portability is a must as is the ability to do troubleshoots as Mr P has suggested. Not being a Computer guy, I was hoping for Brands people have had good experience with ( I have used Toshiba ) and particular models perhaps. Since I have not updated LOR for 2 years I was also wondering if I needed more of this and less of that or a better this or that. I am aware that I would need the 4 to 5 USB ports, but the processor speeds, GB needed and or Ram needed is what I am not sure about. I was thinking perhaps I have someone build one up for me since it will be a dedicated computer and then I am not purchasing all of the other stuff that comes on over the counter computers. Because I often have this set up in different towns, I need reliability, and because it seems that I have maxed out what I now have, because of the lagging I need more oomph. So what ever it takes to get a computer to handle what I have in todays world is what I would like.

For me I use my desktop as I do have the extra screens and it makes my programming much easier, but I am seeking the laptop because I need the portability.

Thanks again, Mike

Same thing, use the desktop and install Team viewer on your machine and phone or tablet. Basically all you are doing is bringing your desktop screen out to your phone. It's a bit behind, but during testing, that should not be a problem.

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Sometimes the droid drives me nuts. I do so much technical typing and many of the words and abbreviations are unknown to it.

On the subject of new computer, as I'm typing this, I'm starting the installation of Windows Server 2012 r2 on my new (to me) Dell R710 server. Hopefully that means my NewburghLights.org website will be back up some time today... Among a bunch of other things. It will be nice to get the mail server off of my show computer where it has lived since the old server died a few weeks ago! Might have time to get to that this weekend.

Fun with computers!!!?

Sent from my Droid Turbo via Tapatalk, so blame any typos or spelling errors on Android

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I'm with a few others on here, I have bought a decent desktop computer to run the show. I do all my sequencing and such on my laptop, then transfer it to the desktop for it to actually run the show. If I have any issues, our want to go outside to test an effect I'll take the laptop outside to test the effect, or make sure a single controller is working.